Archive for
November 21st, 2011

The complaint in the lawsuit filed by David Boies on behalf of NBA players has been voluntarily dismissed by Boies’ firm.

“We assume that Mr. Boies was not happy with either the reassignment of the case from Oakland to San Francisco or the fact that the new judge scheduled the first conference for March 2012,” said Rick Buchanan, NBA Executive Vice President and General Counsel. “This is consistent with Mr. Boies’ inappropriate shopping for a forum that he can only hope will be friendlier to his baseless legal claims.”

According to the Associated Press, “NBA players have filed an amended federal lawsuit against the league in Minnesota. Locked-out players filed class-action antitrust lawsuits against the league last Tuesday in California and Minnesota. But the California complaint was withdrawn Monday and the cases put together in Minnesota.”

On the eve of a charity basketball game he hosted at Harvard University, Rondo was involved in an incident at a nightclub in downtown Lowell. Eric Valarezo, 31, of Haverhill, was charged with disorderly conduct, when he allegedly attempted to punch Rondo, who was exiting the club. No one was injured in the incident. Valarezo is expected to be arraigned today in Lowell District Court…

According to The Sun newspaper in Lowell, officer Michael Kandrotas noticed a scuffle around Rondo and his entrourage — including Atlanta’s Josh Smith, Memphis’ Rudy Gay and former Celtics backup guard Nate Robinson — as patrons exited Brian’s Ivy Hall. According to the paper, police and co-owner Kevin Hayhurst said members of Rondo’s group wrestled Valarezo to the ground after the alleged punch attempt.

With no end to the NBA lockout in sight, the All-Star group is set to lead a four-game “Homecoming Tour,” starting with a matchup in James’ hometown of Akron, Ohio on Dec. 1, followed by a Dec. 4 game in New Orleans, a Dec. 7 game in Chicago and culminating with a Dec. 10 contest in East Rutherford, N.J.

James, Paul, Wade and Anthony are committed to play in all four games of the tour, which was announced early Monday. Proceeds from the tour — which will include events such as food drives, educational outreach programs and clinics in each city — will benefit the four headlining players’ charitable foundations, and tour sponsor Google Plus will stream each game live.

“It’ll be very neat,” Wade told The Associated Press. “First of all, this is something we talked about doing a long time ago as players. To have an opportunity to go to these different cities that we’re from, to bring basketball to them at a high level and also have a charitable component in each city and to be with the guys, it’ll be cool. It’s something we’re looking forward to.”

Tickets for the first three games go on sale Tuesday. Tickets for the East Rutherford game will be on sale Wednesday.

– Reported by the Associated Press

James, Wade and Bosh had initially been listed to participate in a world tour of NBA stars, which also was to include Paul and Anthony. That tour was to include stops in Puerto Rico, London, Macau and Australia before it was cancelled.

“It’s not anything that I’ve heard about since then,” Wade said, with the change of plans to a domestic tour. “I was excited about the opportunity to go, obviously to play basketball with some of my friends, some of the best players in the game, to travel to different places and given them kind of what we get over here, the excitement of the game. It’s unfortunate.”

Instead, the passports are off and the domestic games are on.

“You could see, I was there to the end,” Wade said. “I wasn’t going to pull out of it, I was going to keep going and I wanted to play.”